Classical Conditioning is a behavioral type of learning "in which a previously neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) and is made to elicit a conditioned response (CR) by pairing the CS with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS)" (Chapter 6: Learning). According to Pavlov, the first two things we need to classically condition someone are the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and the unconditioned response (UCR). These terms are kind of confusing, but from my understanding, the UCR is anything that causes some kind of unlearned response. For instance, about two years ago, I’ve discovered that every time I give my son a warm glass of milk at night before bedtime, it makes him instantly sleepy. Based on our module, his “sleeping” is an innate response because he doesn’t have to learn how …show more content…
I am not sure how did it happen, but as far as I can remember, every time I'd turn the shower on, and my son hears the running water from it, he would get excited because he knew that he’s getting milk after he takes a shower and then he goes to bed. Although he was always looking forward to his “milk fix” followed by a nice shower, after a week or two of doing the same routine every night, I knew that my son started “associating” the milk with the running water from the shower which according to the concept, was a neutral stimulus at first, because it didn’t mean anything to my son. It only became a conditioned stimulus after I ran out of milk and stopped giving it to him for almost a week, and his sleeping behavior after he takes a shower without a glass of milk became a conditioned response. In my son's case, obviously, Pavlov's method is effective, learning has taken place. My son now takes a shower regularly before bedtime and sleeps soundly even without a glass of